Laying a new foundation

In 2001, the Sawiris Foundation for Social Development (SFSD) was born. Established by an endowment from members of the Sawiris family, it set out to help the most marginalised Egyptians by supporting sustainable development projects, programmes, and initiatives in partnership with governmental and private sectors. 

Four primary objectives would be targeted: economic empowerment, social empowerment, access to high quality education, and encouraging artistic and cultural creativity. 

The endowment provided by the Sawiris family to launch the fund made it one of the first national donor foundations in Egypt, and Yousriya took great satisfaction in the fact that her three sons were fully onboard with the Foundation. Naguib, Nassef, and Samih not only joined Yousriya and Onsi on the board of trustees, but also provided the majority of the funding through their own companies.

The Foundation is built on the Sawiris family’s innate belief that philanthropy needs to be strategic and sustainable if it is to have any meaningful, long-term impact. The family’s ethos revolves less around charity - a traditional approach in Egypt and the wider region - and instead prioritises empowerment, to provide people the tools to improve their own lives.

“It's not just giving charity,” explains Yousriya's childhood friend and later colleague at APE, Suzie Griess. “It's about always being developmental, in the sense that you want to leave behind something which is solid and something that is sustainable."

Creating this self-reliance requires addressing the fundamental systems to create change and implement solutions, rather than simply dealing with the symptoms. This mirrored how Yousriya and APE set out supporting Zabbaleen communities.

Accordingly, the Foundation's stated vision is to "present a pioneering model for the role of civil society organisations, through promoting and supporting innovative solutions targeting comprehensive and sustainable development."

“My mother has always cared about the poor, but felt that to help them we needed to provide them with jobs, not handouts,’ notes Yousriya’s eldest son Naguib, in an interview.

Although SFSD is a family foundation in name and Yousriya and her sons were involved from the beginning, it is strictly governed by a board, which includes non-family members, and has an executive director. “We thought it was important that the Foundation be operated by a board that would not simply bow to our wishes,” says Samih. “Plus, we wanted to know that, even when we are no longer here, it will have its own endowment.”

In addition to its general academic scholarships, SFSD has also partnered with a number of vocational institutions. In 2010, it established the Gouna Technical Nursing Institute (GTNI), which provides fully-funded scholarships for promising candidates providing them with accommodation, food, and educational materials - and for top students in the second year a stipend, alongside their course fees. To-date it has produced more than 334 nursing graduates who have taken up job opportunities in leading medical institutions, including the 57357 Hospital and the Magdi Yacoub Heart Foundation.

The Sawiris Foundation also provides a number of full and partial scholarships for Egyptian students to study at the German Hotel School in El-Gouna, the only institution of its kind in Egypt to offer high-quality hospitality education combining theoretical study and practical training in hotels. The three-year course and is designed to provide the students with the theoretical background to the hospitality industry, as well as German language skills. All graduates  earn a diploma accredited by the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Leipzig (IHK) as well as the Egyptian Ministry of Education.